“Yes, ma'am.”
“This will work,” I say, reaching for a framed wedding photo on an end table.
“No. Not that one.” Mrs. Weese takes it from my hands. “He looks terrible there. His mouth hanging open like that. Let me get you a better one. From my bedroom …”
“Adam?” Ceepak cocks his head to send Officer Kiger wherever Mrs. Weese goes.
“Ma'am?” Kiger steps forward to let George's mother know she now has an official police escort.
“What? You think I'm going to call George?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Ceepak says because he always tells the truth. “That photograph? We need it immediately if not sooner.”
“Oh, take whatever you want. It doesn't matter.”
I hang on to the wedding shot.
Ceepak's cell phone rings. He rips it off his belt, flips it open.
“This is Ceepak. Go ahead.”
We all stare while he nods, then nods again.
“Right. Thank you.”
He snaps the cell phone shut.
“What?” demands Chief Baines.
“Friend of ours down on the boardwalk.”
“Who?”
“T. J. Lapczynski.” Ceepak turns from the chief to face Mr. Weese. “He's played paintball with your son.”
“So?”
“George is on the boardwalk right now, heading for the Tower of Terror.”
“Let's go,” Baines says.
“Possible ten-eighty-eight.”
“Jesus, he has a gun?”
“Not certain. However, T. J. says our suspect is carrying a duffel bag.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Tower of Terror is that 250-foot-tall ride in the middle of the boardwalk.
It looks like the Seattle Space Needle-a steeple of steel girders and diagonal tie beams stretching up to the sky. On all four sides are these chairs you pay good money to sit in to be scared out of your wits. There are six chairs on each side with seat belts and padded shoulder harnesses. Twenty-four folks get hauled up to the top. Twenty-four folks get dropped about 240 feet before the brakes come on. It's like paying five bucks to ride an open-air elevator and have somebody snip the cable.
I only rode the Tower of Terror once, and I think my stomach is still somewhere up there, about halfway down.
From the top, before they drop you like a rock, you do, momentarily, get this incredible view-all the way up and down the beach. You can see the boardwalk below, the ocean off to the side. On a clear day, you can see all the way out to the Ship John lighthouse on the north end of the island. If George Weese makes it to the top of the Tower with an M-24 Sniper Weapon System, he could definitely rain down all sorts of terror.
“Shut it down!” Chief Baines issues the command into his radio microphone. We run down the sweeping staircase outside the Weese house. “Shut the Tower down, now!”
Fortunately, we have plenty of guys patrolling the boardwalk on account of the big holiday crowds. Dominic Santucci, the hardass of all hardass cops, the guy who constantly busts my chops, is in charge down there. He'll get the job done. In fact, I'm sure the Tower of Terror is already frozen in mid-hoist, stranding confused thrillseekers in their seats with nothing to do but dangle their feet and check out that view.
“Lights and sirens?” Ceepak asks the chief as we slide into our vehicle and the chief jumps into his.
“No. No noise. Just haul ass. Flashers only.”
“Ten-four.” Ceepak slams his door shut and snaps on the roofbar. The lights swirl their reds and blues to request that anyone driving in front of us kindly get the hell out of our way.
Malloy and Kiger will stay here with the Weeses. McDaniels and her techs will swab George's bathroom. Ceepak, the chief, and I?
We shall proceed to haul ass.
“The ride is shut down,” our radio cackles. “Repeat. Tower of Terror is shut down.”
“Good work, Dom,” we hear the chief reply.
We're doing about 75 mph up Ocean Avenue. Ceepak grabs the radio mic. Now he's doing 75 one-handed. “Any sign of Weese?”
“Not here,” Santucci comes back. “Not at Tower of Terror.”
“Do you know what he looks like?” the chief asks over the radio.
“Sort of.”
On the radio, we hear the chief's curt reply. “Not good enough, Sergeant Santucci!”
Ceepak gestures for me to take the George Weese wedding photo we grabbed out of its frame.
“Dom, do you have your computer up?” he says into his hand mic.
“Ten-four. Up and operational.”
“Danny's going to e-mail you an image.”
I use our in-car digital video camera to grab a still frame of the wedding photo. It shows an open-mouthed George wearing the same glasses he wore when he was fifteen-at least the same style. His bride, Natalia, at his side looks impassive. Kind of glum. George's own expression is difficult to read.
I squeeze off a freeze frame, punch a few keys, and zap the image off to Santucci.
“Brace yourself,” Ceepak says.
I brace my hand against the dash. Inertia thrusts me forward. It'll do that when your partner goes from 75 to zero in ten seconds.
Another sloppy parking job for Ceepak. We're right near a flight of steps leading up to the boardwalk. We hop out and start running.
“Excuse me. Pardon me.”
Ceepak is polite even as we shove our way through the crowd. It is a total teeming mob scene. Thousands of kids. Teenagers. College girls. Bare skin and bikinis everywhere. The place is packed. There's so much coconut oil on the breeze you can't even smell the Italian sausage sandwiches.
“This is Two,” a voice crackles off our walkie-talkies. “Suspect spotted. Headed south. He is carrying a black duffel bag.”
The Tower of Terror is north. George must've changed his mind when he saw the crowd of cops converging on that ride, realized the elevator wasn't going up to the top anymore.
Ceepak scans the horizon. I follow his eye line. The Tower of Terror pokes up against the cloudless blue sky to the north. We swing to the south. I see the Ferris wheel and the Paul Bunyan-size statue of a Muffler Man someone repainted to look like a giant pirate holding a treasure chest. In front of us is the Atlantic Ocean. Behind us the shops-the mile-long row of arcades, food joints, tattoo parlors, T-shirt places.
“There!” Ceepak does his three-finger point to the south and east. The Mad Mouse roller coaster. “That'd be my fallback position.”
I see what Ceepak sees. The Mad Mouse is the second-tallest steel structure on the beach. The twisting track is at the end of a short pier that juts out across the beach and over the ocean. The turns on the track are tight, sharp. The track itself, narrow. It's steep in places, but you could run up it like you were running up a ladder leaning against the side of your house, no need to wait for a seat like back at the Tower of Terror. You could hop the line, knock over the kid taking tickets, scamper up the track, and be at your sniper post in no time.
There's jagged, light-bulb letters up top spelling out the words “MAD MOUSE.” Each of the Ms is at least six feet tall. Weese could slip behind one, prop his rifle in the giant Ms V-shaped crotch and start picking off targets down below.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Coming through.”
We play Ceepak's hunch, work our way through the mob and head south, over to the Mad Mouse.
I see Ceepak touch his pistol. He doesn't unsnap the holster, doesn't want to start shooting, not when we're surrounded by this tight a pack of innocent bystanders. But he wants to make sure it's still there in case he needs it.
“This is Four. We've got him.” Another one of our foot soldiers has spotted Weese.
“Go, Four.” It's Baines. He's in his car somewhere, coordinating.
“Suspect … south …”
Unit Four's broadcast breaks up, but we catch the gist.
“Middle of crowd … now east … Swirl Cone.”
Ceepak stops in his tr
acks. Tries to get his bearings.
“All units,” Baines voice comes over the radio. “Move south. Surround suspect.”
“This a drug bust?” This chubby guy in a Speedo blocks our path. He licks an orange-and-white ice cream cone, stands with one hand nestled against the belly roll where his hip should be.
“Sir, where did you purchase that?” Ceepak asks him.
“Why? Is something wrong with it?”
“No, sir. Where did you purchase your cone?” Ceepak sounds like he really, really wants softserve ice cream.
“Over there.” The guy gestures with his cone and it drips down his pudgy fist.
“Danny?”
“Sand Castle Swirl Cones. I know it.”
“Is it near the Mad Mouse?”
“Yeah. Top of the pier. Fifty feet from the roller coaster.”
Swirl Cones. We heard the words in Unit Four's call. Ceepak's hunch was right. We need to hustle.
“There,” I say, pointing to the glowing orange-and-white swirl cone turrets poking out from Sand Castle's roof. We weave our way down the boardwalk, reach the top of the pier.
There's a commotion by the Mad Mouse ticket booth. A wave ripples through the line like somebody is pushing and shoving everybody else.
“Watch it, asshole!” Someone screams. Whoever she is, she has a mouth on her. “Fucking asshole is cutting the line!”
“There.” Ceepak points to a silhouette of a skinny man lugging a duffel bag. He is climbing over coaster cars and scrambling up the track. He's only a silhouette against the bright morning sky, but I recognize the loping gait. It's definitely Wheezer.
Now what?
Ceepak punches his radio's shoulder mic.
“This is Ceepak. Suspect is scaling Mad Mouse.”
“All units, this is Baines. Move in. Move in. Mad Mouse. Mad Mouse! Move!”
Ceepak stays calm.
“Suspect appears to be carrying his weapon concealed in a duffel bag,” he says into the radio. “Repeat. His weapon is still cased, he is not currently armed.”
“All units, all units. Move in on the Mad Mouse. Take him down!”
The screams at the base of the ride grow louder. The people don't yet sound scared, just mad.
“Get off the track, asshole!”
The ride they've been standing in line for has all of a sudden been shut down because some idiot with a suitcase is climbing up the tracks.
“We've been waiting!” One of them shouts. “It's our turn!”
So far no one suspects anything worse than a jerk with a gym bag.
Weese stumbles on the steepest hill of the track. Slips. Almost drops the duffel bag. He pulls himself back up, holds on to the guardrails like he's climbing a gangplank, checks his grip on the bag, and continues toward the top. He's heading for those blinking Ms.
Ceepak stops. Looks left. Right. Assesses our options.
“Backtrack,” he says. I have no idea why. He pivots and heads west. So instead of running toward the Mad Mouse we're heading back up the pier toward the boardwalk shops and lemonade stands and …
… Paintball Blasters. The booth is right in front of us.
Ceepak dashes up to the counter like he wants to take a quick break and pop off a few shots at that cardboard Saddam.
He grabs a rifle, yanks it hard.
“Hey!” It's the old guy in the sleeveless T-shirt. Guess he's running things this morning.
“Is this weapon loaded and charged, sir?”
“Yeah, but you can't-”
Ceepak doesn't listen. He rips the gun off its anchor chain, pulls up a chunk of plywood and a screw.
“You break it, you buy it! You hear me?”
Ceepak twists around, lifts the rifle to his eye, squints, lines up the nose notch, squeezes the trigger.
Pop.
A paint ball smacks Weese's wrist. He drops the duffel but quickly lurches forward to grab it before it falls through the track.
Pop.
The second ball bops him in the right butt cheek, knocking him off balance. The duffel falls through the space between track ties, bounces off braces and crossbeams, tumbles down to the pier below.
Pop. Pop.
Paintballs three and four splatter Weese's shins. Left then right. He spins sideways, pants wet with paint, his feet slip out from under him, he flops onto the track, slides and wobbles down the hill like one of those battery-operated Penguin roller coasters.
The Mad Mouse crowd cheers when Weese comes tumbling down.
“Line jumper!” One guy yells. “That'll show you!”
Cops swarm the ride. Two guys crouch in the little mouse cars, use the ears up front to steady their pistols and take aim at Weese.
Santucci crawls under the girders to retrieve the duffel. Another one of our guys storms up the track, weapon drawn. Weese sits on his butt, his paint-slickened hands held high over his head.
It's over. We got him.
I turn to Ceepak. Check out the paintball weapon he tore off the counter.
“Rifle number three?”
“Roger that,” he says with the hint of a smile. “T. J's right. It's definitely the best.”
CHAPTER FORTY
We watch Santucci stuff George Weese into the back seat of a police cruiser parked on the boardwalk. I never knew you could drive down the boards in anything bigger than a golf cart-style trash hauler. I've seen those scoot up and down the boardwalk before, never a cop car. Guess there's an on-ramp somewhere.
Anyhow, Weese's hands are tied behind his back with flex-cuffs and Santucci has his hand on top of Weese's head, smooshing down that country music comb-back, trying to cram him into the back seat without banging his head against the doorjamb.
“Fucking line jumper!” someone shouts. I think it might be that same girl. Everybody here thinks Weese is being hauled away because he wouldn't wait his turn to ride the Mad Mouse. We're the Courtesy Cops, the Etiquette Enforcers.
“Good work, guys.” Chief Baines is standing next to us. “Damn good work!” He claps Ceepak on the back. “Fantastic.”
Weese is in the back seat staring at me.
It's an unpleasant sensation. The thick lenses in his glasses magnify his eyeballs so they look swollen, bloated with anger. I can see that, just as I had feared, just as Ceepak hypothesized, our suspect hates me.
Man, he hates me a lot.
“Why don't you guys take the rest of the weekend off?” Baines now says. “Enjoy yourselves. Come back tomorrow and grab some barbecue. Heck, you're the two working stiffs who just saved Labor Day!”
“We'd like to tie up a few loose ends,” Ceepak says, sounding like he won't even think about taking time off until he's convinced this thing is completely over. He told me they had a lot of ceasefires back in Iraq. The only problem? People kept firing.
“We need to interrogate the suspect, ASAP.”
“Sure. Sure. We'll call his folks. See if they want a lawyer present. See you back at the house.”
On the drive back to headquarters, I tell Ceepak the whole story of what happened that day on the beach. What we did to George Weese. How we humiliated the Wheezer.
He nods. He understands.
Ripple effects.
When we walk in the front door of the house, everybody starts clapping.
“Way to go, guys!”
“Congratulations.”
It's pretty awesome to walk into a police station as the cops who just cracked the big case and busted the bad guy. Everybody pats us on the back, shakes our hands. Most of the “way-to-go's” go to Ceepak, but I pick up the occasional “attaboy-Danny.”
We head down the hall and see Santucci.
“Where is George Weese?” Ceepak asks.
“We put him in the interrogation room,” says Santucci. Then, he pops a gumball in his mouth, turns to me. “You did okay today, kid.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks, Dom.”
He crunches his gumball a couple of chomps. Waits.
He winks to let me know I got it right that time.
“We can't talk to him yet,” he says. “His parents want a lawyer in the room before they let the kid answer any questions.”
Ceepak understands. “How much longer until the lawyer arrives?”
“Mr. Weese said it might take a couple of hours. Apparently, their attorney is somewhere out in the bay on his sailboat looking for the wind.”
“Where's the duffel bag?”
“In the back. Dr. McDaniels and her crew set up shop in the empty office.”
“Was it an M-24?” Ceepak asks.
“Yep. Loaded with those special ball cartridges you told us about. Five of them. We saved some lives out there today.”
“Roger that.”
They both smile. Their adrenaline drains. They're coming down off the high you get when you're ripping paintball rifles off plywood counters or chasing bad guys up a Mad Mouse.
It's all good.
“Yeah, that's him.”
Young T. J. Lapczynski is with us in the viewing room. There's a one-way mirror between us and the interrogation room. We can see George Weese, but he can't see us. A cop is in the room with him, sitting in a folding chair near the door.
Weese is at one end of a long table. He stares straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the wall. I don't think he knows we're over here on the other side of the mirror studying him like he's some sort of firefly we trapped in our mayonnaise jar. Maybe he does. If so, he sure doesn't seem to care. There's a cup of coffee and a bottle of Poland Spring water sitting on the table in front of him. So far he hasn't touched either.
“That's definitely the dude who kept hogging number three.”
“You're sure?”
“Totally.”
“Okay. Thanks, T. J. And thanks again for the heads-up.”
T. J. shrugs it off, like it was no big deal.
“I just wanted to, you know, get a shot at my favorite rifle again.”
Ceepak smiles.
“So, you call my mom yet?”
“We've been rather busy.”
“Call her. You guys could get, like, a ten percent discount on any dinner at Morgan's.”
“Ten percent? That'll work.”
Mad Mouse js-2 Page 20